


Things You Wanted to Say

by Breath4Soul



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Cemetery, Confessions, Dark Humor, Emotional, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Roller Coaster, Feelings, John-centric, Johnlock Fluff, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Sad, Sherlock's Grave, Talking, Talking To Dead People, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 11:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6076983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breath4Soul/pseuds/Breath4Soul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>After Sherlock's apparent suicide, John finds himself stranded in the cemetery. He talks to Sherlock's grave telling him the things they never talked about when he was alive - the things he couldn't tell his therapist and some he hasn't really worked out until then.</b><br/>______________________________</p><blockquote>
  <p>John sits back and stares at the stone. The fading light of the sun shows his own muted reflection kneeling.</p>
  <p>“You're right. I'm a bloody coward… what I said… how I acted… I'm an idiot... We both knew that.” He sighs and turns, settling his back against the gravestone. He tips his head back and looks at the already risen moon through the branches of the pine tree.</p>
  <p>“Alright, Sherlock... let's talk. I’ve got a couple hours and you're not going anywhere, so I think it's just about time.”</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Things You Wanted to Say

The amount of expletives that escape John's mouth as he sits in the car, turning the key and listening to the engine click futily without ignition is enough to disturb the quiet peace of the cemetery. It might earn him a dirty look if anyone were around to care, but as it is the sun is quickly sinking on the acres of desolate land.

“Shit!” John says slamming a hand on the steering wheel in aggravation. He tries to breathe but the frustration is creeping up, twisting into anger and sharpened by grief. He grabs the steering wheel with both hands in a white knuckled grip and rattles it violently back and forth. 

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” he mutters through gritted teeth and then suddenly hot tears are streaming down his face. Pain twists his gut and he bows his head “Shit. Shi -Sherlock. Sherlock. God, Sherlock.” His voice dies in a creaking rasp.

He rests his head against the steering wheel and listens to the inhuman wail force its way out of his physically and emotionally exhausted body. The tears are pouring down his face in hot rivers, soaking his chest. Sobs wrack his entire frame in painful spasms. His mind circles and he lets the grief wash over him in waves of devastation. 

“I -I just want…” John doesn't know how to finish that sentence. It just hangs there like an indescribable ache weighing on his chest. He doesn't know what he wants and hasn't _that_ always been the problem. He leans back tipping his head up and pressing his eyes closed. He punches the ceiling of the car repeatedly. The hum of pain from his now bruised hand barely touches his awareness.

“You goddamn selfish bastard,” He roars. “Goddamnit. Goddamnit. I - I needed you… _need_ you - you can't just…” His voice becomes a formless groan. He puts his face wearily in his hands, anger giving way to that deep, dark, bottomless sadness. “But you did.” John breathes. “It's over. You're gone.” 

John sobers feeling all at once hollow and empty of everything. He vigorously scrubs the tears from his face and sits gazing with unseeing eyes across the somewhat decrepit cemetery. 

The scraggly old pine trees, low bushes and patchy grass makes the graveyard seem abandoned to neglect. The erratic placement of headstones and monuments gives the sense that things are lurking, peering out from behind the numerous shadowed nooks and crannies. He would have thought Mycroft would have found some place grander for his brother’s final resting place; something with sweeping manicured lawns and towering monuments. Then again, the nature of Sherlock's death had changed things. Some cemeteries had rules against accommodating suicide victims.

He shakes his head trying to disperse those thoughts. Thinking about Mycroft and his role in his best friend's demise is a dark path John best not venture down lest he find himself in prison for murdering the man.

_It's over. This is where we are now. Keep it together, Watson._

He sighs and tries turning the key one last time. He listens to the whirl, even weaker than the previous tries. _Dead battery_. He gives a mirthless laugh and nods. It seems about right. Anything that can go wrong, will. That is his life now.

He sighs and picks up his phone. Who is he to call now? 

Over the past two years his life had slowly come to revolve in tighter and tighter orbit around a certain consulting detective that now rests in a wooden box six feet under. There had been few lasting people in his life outside of that. Of those rare people that he has kept in his Sherlock-centric life, there are few that he would call on now since he refuses to associate with anyone that even considers the lies about Sherlock.

There is his sister, Harry, but even if she were in London, asking her for help would be more trouble than it is worth. 

He isn't close enough to any coworkers from the clinic to ask them to drive a half hour out on a Tuesday night to give him a jump.

He previously considered Greg a friend that was good in a pinch, but that bridge was pretty well charred in those last days of Sherlock's life. Since then they only exchanged a few tense words at the funeral. Greg offered something like an apology that was more a statement about _just doing his job_ with the arrest of Sherlock. The regret and guilt was written all over his face, but John couldn't grant him some sign of forgiveness. He could only give him a stoic nod. He knows it is ultimately Moriarty who is to blame, but then again no one is really blameless in this. 

That only leaves Stanford. He is a simple man. He won't ask too many questions or say idiotic things that might make John lose his very tenuous grip on his temper. 

He sends him a text and waits. 

He leans forward and watches as down another path about a kilometer away a white truck with a pulley system pulls up followed by a long white hearse. The workers unload a simple coffin and use the truck to lower it down into the earth. John watches silently, hardly breathing. He looks around but there is no one else. No loved ones; not a single grieving family member or friend. This stranger is being put into their final resting place without a single other soul to witness it besides John. A profound sadness settles over him like a dark and suffocating cloud. Suddenly the car seems claustrophobic. 

He opens the door and steps out, slamming it behind him with a thunk that echoes across the cemetery. One of the workers turns towards him and he ducks his head, clenching and unclenching his firsts at his side. 

His phone buzzes and he is relieved to have the distraction of checking it. He fishes it out of his coat pocket and looks at Stanford’s response.

> Sorry to hear that, mate. I am teaching a class until 7. Will grab a cable and be there right after. 

John lets out a long sigh then sends a thank you reply. When he looks up he finds his feet have carried him back to the smooth black stone with Sherlock’s name engraved on it. The shock of it stings him. It seems even on death this man has a natural gravitational pull on him. Wherever Sherlock is John just instinctively finds himself there as well.

He shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks from heel to toe staring at the rectangle of still fresh dirt. 

“Stranded… at a cemetery… at night,” John says with a sad chuckle. “I somehow think this was your dementedly creative idea.” 

He hesitates then reaches out and touches the stone. The sleek, cold highly polished black marble is a suiting monument to the man. John can't help but remember the shockingly pale and smooth skin he rarely touched except in the clinical fashion of a doctor when he was called upon to treat a minor injury. 

In spite of the cold white of his skin, Sherlock always felt very alive with warmth; there was blood surging through those veins and the flex of muscle sliding beneath flesh while those sharply perceptive eyes watched John’s practiced hands attend him. 

John presses his eyes closed and feels his body trembling. 

“I should feel it, right?” The words tumble out of his mouth before he even has time to consider them, but it is always right there near the front of his mind these days. “I mean, I saw it happen for God's sake… it happened... so I shouldn't feel like you're… You're… I feel like you're still here, Sherlock.” John shakes his head. 

“It’s - It’s shock or something… I'm a doctor, I know about shock, Sherlock...and denial… yes, I know that that is a stage of grief… I've seen plenty of families…” He leans forward with both hands on the gravestone now. His body is swaying and his legs feel weak.

“We both know - we both know you’ve got this twisted sense of humor, Sherlock... and I keep waiting for you to just pop up somewhere in some absurd costume and just be like _‘not dead’_ and I'll want to punch you but we’ll end up laughing because you're… just so… ridiculous.” The tears start burning John's eyes again and he has to swallow a few times before he can speak again. “God I loved how ridiculous you were.”

A desperate thought floods John's mind and his legs give out. He is kneeling, forehead pressed against the cold stone, hands clinging to the top of it. “You're awful.. this is all so awful…” He whispers. His voice turns bitter. “What the hell did you want from me, Sherlock? What the hell?... I would have… _anything_ … I know… I know I'm not much… but, god, if you could’ve just told me what you needed… what to say… what to do… what would have been enough? Yeah?” John sighs. He rocks back a little and traces the groove of the letter ‘c’ with his finger. “I thought you knew that.”

John sits back and stares at the stone. The fading light of the sun shows his own muted reflection kneeling.

“You're right. I'm a bloody coward… what I said… how I acted… I'm an idiot... We both knew that.” He sighs and turns, settling his back against the gravestone. He tips his head back and looks at the already risen moon through the branches of the pine tree.

“Alright, Sherlock... let's talk. I’ve got a couple hours and you're not going anywhere, so I think it's just about time.”

**Author's Note:**

> Art imitating life - getting stuck in a graveyard at night and being the only witness to a stranger's burial this way actually happened to me recently. So my mind went to how John would handle it and the things he might finally say.
> 
>  _More chapters to come!_  
>     
>  **Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated. As well as suggestions on what you like to see next are warmly welcomed. I love hearing from you!**


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